Choco Mucho Flying Titans’ Kat Tolentino throughout a PVL All-Filipino Convention sport. –PVL PHOTO
At first look, it will appear that Choco Mucho has been on a decline since constantly being a title contender within the PVL.
After back-to-back silver finishes behind sister group Creamline final season, the Flying Titans suffered harm points whereas Sisi Rondina and Cherry Nunag have been loaned to the nationwide group duties as Choco Mucho crashed within the All-Filipino—a free fall that import Zoi Faki did not arrest within the Strengthened Convention.
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They received everybody again for this season’s All-Filipino Convention.
However even with Kat Tolentino and Des Cheng now wholesome and Rondina and Nunag again in harness, Choco Mucho misplaced its match in opposition to Brooke van Sickle and the Petro Gazz Angels. It was sufficient to trigger alarm among the many group’s followers.
It was, nonetheless, additionally simply their first sport.
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“I believe we simply have to regulate,” Tolentino stated of the group’s latest string of dangerous luck. “It’s [our team’s] first sport so we will’t lose hope or really feel like that is the way it’ll be for the [rest of the All-Filipino] Convention.”
The adjustment comes with the Flying Titans shedding Maddie Madayag, who opted to play abroad, and Deanna Wong, the enigmatic setter nursing a knee harm.
“It’s good to [suffer losses] at the start in order that we will be taught from it and we will repair what we have to repair,” Tolentino, who regardless of nonetheless not being one hundred pc pitched in 12 factors in her first sport since her return, stated. “I do know I may give extra.”
Turned a nook?
Tolentino stated the absence of Madayag could also be telling, however she additionally sees it as a possibility for others to fill in that function.
“It’s [feels] totally different for me. I’m so used to taking part in with [Madayag] as the center,” Tolentino stated. “However I additionally received used to taking part in with the opposite women so it’s good to see our rookie Lorraine [Pecaña] step up and fill her place.”
Tolentino and the Flying Titans are hoping they’ve turned a nook after a troublesome victory over Galeries Tower, 27-29, 25-20, 25-19, 17-25, 15-12, on Thursday.
“We’re a combating group,” she stated after the match, after unleashing 20 kills and scoring off seven blocks for a team-high 27 factors.
Pecaña had a key second within the sport, scoring off two essential blocks, the second of which gave Choco Mucho respiratory house, 12-10, after Galeries rallied from three down to come back inside a degree.
Cheng knocked in a key ace whereas Rondina pushed the Titans to match level earlier than closing out the win—each off her trademark highly effective spikes.
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“Since I’ve been with Choco Mucho [in the] starting I’ve seen the way it’s advanced and I do know that we’ve got to form of fail or lose so as to win,” the previous Ateneo star, one of many longest-tenured gamers on the group, stated. “I’ve gone via many Choco Muchos the place we’ve misplaced … Choco Mucho has come up to now since once I first began so I’m simply gonna preserve working arduous.”
